


Moving Forward

by Beth Harker (Beth_Harker)



Category: Bat Boy: The Musical - O'Keefe/Farley/Flemming
Genre: F/F, F/M, Mentions of canon incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-21 12:57:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17044169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beth_Harker/pseuds/Beth%20Harker
Summary: Shelley Parker goes forth into the future.





	Moving Forward

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stuff_and_nonsense](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stuff_and_nonsense/gifts).



Shelley is twenty when she gets a call from the International Cryptid Network, asking her to recount her tragic story. That goes to show just what a dumb backwater town Hope Falls is, that the tale of something as monumental as a human-bat hybrid could go unnoticed for so many years, at least insofar as it never got reported on by any publication more venerated than the Weekly World News. 

(Everybody knows that the articles in the Weekly World News are a parody or a lie, like the Onion, only less clever satire and more trashy sensationalism. Nonetheless, Shelley wonders what other bits of fact have managed to grace those ridiculous pages. Like, maybe Taylor Swift really _does_ have the index finger of her parasitic twin growing out of the place where her left nipple should be, and maybe that finger really does have psychic powers. Not like Shelley has ever gotten close enough to check.).

Shelley is twenty-two when she becomes an esteemed member of the International Cryptic Network. She gets a badge that looks like something from the five and dime, and a stalwart investigation partner that would make Agent Mulder look like a skeptic in comparison. Then again, Shelley is no Agent Scully. She is a confirmed dirty monster fucker, and an unrepentant one at that. 

(She kinda wishes the monster hadn't been her half brother, but that's what happens when one lies to their children. Incest. So, thanks for that, mom and dad. Rest In Peace, sickos.)

~~(Shelley still grieves for both her parents sometimes, but god, it's so much easier to lie to herself and pretend she doesn't.)~~

Turns out that the Weekly World News isn't a terrible source of information when it comes to cryptids and hybrids. The celebrity stuff is pure BS, but around ten to twenty percent of the cryptid stuff turns out to be true. That's where Shelley gets the lead about the mad scientist who has been successfully grafting elephant trunks onto human babies. It's evil and gross.

(Edgar wasn’t really a monster. Shelley can use irreverence as a way to cope, but in her heart she knows there was never a better or purer being than her Edgar.)

Humanity is monstrous. That's something that humanity has known since Mary Shelly at least, which is super long. No creature that goes bump in the night can match humanity for its hatred on the unknown, and what humanity hates, it destroys. 

At twenty-three, Shelley loves her job, but she hates and despises authority. People in charge get that way by keeping key information from people and trying to regulate emotions. When Shelley’s boss tells her that she's getting paid as much as the other cryptic hunters (which is to say, nothing) she asks around and negotiates a raise for herself (which is to say, a little more than minimum wage, plus travel expenses, and nicer accommodations). When Shelley’s boss tries to regulate how she’ll interact with the creatures she discovers, she flat out ignores him. 

Little by little, through her work and her creatures, Shelley Parker heals. 

In Minnesota, she sits and talks to a young woman with opossum in her blood. Perhaps to some people the elongated snout, white fur, and hairless tail set against Polly’s humanoid frame make her frightening, but not to Shelley. Indeed, Polly is more frightening to herself. 

“I know— I hope I know — I don't _know_ , but I recognize the soul within me,” Polly tries to explain. “And yet, I'm all at odds. I love books. I love theatre. But I also love trash. I'd be quite at home hiding out in a trash can and screeching at passersby, or at least I would be, if I didn't know better.” 

In the wilds of Maine, Shelley comes face to face with Bigfoot. It is true that he lacks the eloquence shown by both Polly and Edgar, but Bigfoot turns out to be something of a misnomer. Sure, his feet are huge, but it's his heart that is absolutely enormous. 

Centaurs exist, and they are hiding out in the Amazon rainforest. They allow Shelley to spend a month among them, learning their ways and their language. It's not that they don't wish to be known. It’s that they don't want to come to any danger, and the world is full of danger for that which it does not understand. 

Through all of this, Shelley keeps coming back to Edgar. What would he think of her now? Would he feel, as Shelley does, that she was a stupid child when they first met? Would he recognize that she is so much better and so much more open now? 

The centaurs don’t need Shelley. They are unspoiled by the ways of people, and perhaps better off without her. Bigfoot it also doing okay on his own. Polly on the other hand? Like Edgar, she's become something of a small town celebrity, and chafes under the expectations there. 

Shelley finds her, and whisks her away. 

“I have nothing to teach you,” is what she tells Polly. “I just want you to be safe. Stay with me. You don't have to change for me. I'll change for you.” 

Gradually, Shelley does. Her house becomes dirtier, even as the walls become lined with bookshelves. She learns to abide meals made up of fresh fruit and things that are vaguely rotten. She learns to love Polly’s sniffing and snuffling, her beady eyes, and her human hands. 

They talk about Edgar. They talk about how Shelley can't help but love her poor departed mother still, and more shamefully her dad, who was always good to her at least. They talk about how Shelley can't really abide these memories in light of the life that her parents destroyed. 

Polly talks about her own parents, who never put her in a cage, but never allowed her to live her life in her own way, either. 

Six months into their cohabitation, Shelley and Polly make their offering to a forgotten god - Pan of the forest, Pan of the misfits and the strange. And Polly is a person, and Shelley is a person, and they love each other.


End file.
